Many homeowners employ various bird and animal feeders to attract fauna. Often, people set up hummingbird feeders in order to attract hummingbirds for observation. Many existing hummingbird feeders use a port located at the bottom of the feeder that allows for liquid food (e.g., nectar) to drip and thereby be accessed by hummingbirds. However, these nectar dripping feeders allow their nectar to drop regardless of whether a hummingbird is feeding. Therefore, most of the nectar may be wasted and continual dripping may attract ants, bees, and other undesired animals. There is a need for a feeder that allows a hummingbird to access the nectar without requiring the nectar to move or drip out of the feeder.
Current hummingbird feeders that allow access to nectar without requiring the nectar to move or drip out of the feeder are difficult to create and contain bulky, fragile, not-easily-replaceable tubes into which the hummingbird places its mouth and tongue in order to feed. These bulky tubes contain integrated structures (i.e., a flower) that make them large and fragile. These bulky tubes must be handled carefully during cleaning or they risk being broken. Additionally, these bulky tubes must be packaged and handled carefully during shipping and transport, thus increasing the overall cost of the initial product and any replacement tubes. U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,672,249 and 6,499,430 both disclose a hummingbird feeder tube having a large, delicate, annular lip in the shape of a flower, having a plurality of petals. The hummingbird feeder tubes disclosed by the '249 and '430 patents can only be used with reservoirs having relatively flat apertures, as the annular lip of the feeding tube contains substantial ornamentation in the shape of the flower petals.
There is a need for a non-drip hummingbird feeder with inexpensive, easily-replaceable feeding tubes.